Swish Fibre Begins Full Fibre Rollout for Farnham in Surrey UK

UK ISP Swish Fibre, which aims to rollout a 10Gbps Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network to cover 250,000 premises in the Home Counties of England, has announced that they’ve broken their first ground in Surrey with a deployment in Farnham. The town is home to around 40,000 people.

The provider, which was acquired by Fern Trading at the end of 2019 (they also own Jurassic Fibre in the South West of England), has a “long-term funding deal” that could enable them to unlock £250m of investment as part of their plans (here). Last year Swish unveiled a list of the 33 towns where they intend to deploy (SF’s rollout plan) and they plan to be live in 10 of those by June 2021.

So far most of the provider’s initial build has tended to focus on parts of Buckinghamshire (e.g. Marlow, Gerrards Cross and Bourne End), although they’ve now added Surrey to that list by extending into the town of Farnham.

Interestingly, this town is very close to where local rival toob today announced they were deploying (i.e. Camberley and Frimley), but there’s currently no sign of a future clash in their respective plans. Otherwise, Swish Fibre’s main gigabit-capable rival in the area will be Virgin Media, which at present covers the very centre of Farnham.

Alistair Goulden, CMO of Swish Fibre, said:

“Not only are we building networks with the fastest residential speeds that we have seen in the UK, but we are also delighted about the speed at which we are rolling out our networks too. The latest teams we’ve mobilised in Surrey have already made great progress on the ground in Farnham, with other Surrey towns to follow very soon.”

The first full fibre cabinet has already been built on Long Bridge in Farnham and more will soon follow. Customers typically pay from £45 per month for their unlimited 400Mbps (average speed) package, which rises to £75 if you want their top 900Mbps plan. A one-off £50 activation fee is also payable.